, MUSIC
From de Machault to Poulenc THE concerts of French music given at Wigmore Hall under the auspices of the French Provisional Government are able to cover ground that would be hardly practicable for a commercial concert- giver dependent upon box-office receipts alone. Last Sunday's pro- gramme employed a singer and nine solo instrumentalists, and was thereby able to include a most interesting variety of works for different combinations of wind and strings.
From Guillaume de Machault to Francis Poulenc is a space of 600 years. The " Double Hoquet " by the one represented the music of France at the time of Crecy ; the Trio for trumpet, horn and trombone by the other is an example of what was fashionable in Paris just after the Treaty of Versailles was signed. The Hoquet was played on those same instruments and sounded magnificently rich and solemn. That is justification enough for the transference of what I suspect to be vocal music to the brass. For " hoquet " implies the interruption of the vocal phrases by unexpected rests, for instance in the middle of words—an artificial device, used in a different way by nineteenth-century Italian composers. Caro nome " in Rigoletto is a familiar example.
Poulenc's Trio for brass is a joke, consisting in making the dignified instruments perform gay circus-music. It is funny in the way that a gentleman in a top hat slipping on orange peel is funny. As musical orange-peel is, like the real thing, rare, we may be grateful for the ioke which is well done. But Poulenc showed himself capable of better music in a set of songs with words by Moreas, and a Trio for oboe, bassoon and pianoforte, which has a beautiful Andante in the classical manner of Gluck.
The most important work in the programme was a String Trio by Roussel, his last published work, which was given its first perform- ance in London. This composer usually impresses one more by his skill in music-making than by the interest of what he has to say. This limitation is apparent in the first movement of the Trio. But in the Adagio there is authentic poetry, and the movement reaches its passionate climax with a completely satisfying sense of growth. The finale, too, is excellent in material and design.
DYNELEY HUSSEY.
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